Mystory@Vishal Sharma: How I selected my course and college

Mystory@Vishal Sharma

I had a keen interest in programming from my early childhood days and I was pretty sure at the back of my mind about the stream I wanted to pursue. I worked hard in Class 10th and scored well in the Board exam. Since I wanted to pursue engineering, I chose to go with Math and Science without Biology.

My choice of college was dependent on a lot of factors like the college rank for my preferred course, college faculty, their reviews from different forums and my social circle, and last but not the least my performance in engineering entrance to be eligible for the college I aspired to join.

Since I was sure about the course I wanted to join, I made a list of possible colleges offering that course and applied for them. I managed a decent rank in AIEEE and converted JMIT Radaur. Once I was shortlisted by these colleges and got calls from them I had to decide on the basis of other parameters like placements, ROI (return on investment) and accessibility as well. I was getting admission in Mechanical Engineering in another good college but I refused to do engineering in any branch other than CSE (Computer Science & Engineering) and finally joined JMIT where I got the stream of my choice.

How I prepared for BTech college admission

To crack admission in good engineering colleges I decided to select a good coaching class which would help in reaching my goal. I shortlisted a few coaching classes. After analyzing my choices of coaching classes, I found FIITJEE as my best option. I joined 1 year coaching program offered by FIITJEE, Chandigarh center. The program helped me prepare for almost every entrance exam I wanted to take. There were multiple engineering entrance examinations I appeared for like AIEEE, IPU Entrance exam, VITEEE and JEE.

I was actively doing research on my target colleges for the cut-off scores of last few years. I worked very hard to clear the cutoff for my target colleges. I was appearing for test series related to the above mentioned entrance examinations wherein I could track my progress with respect to other people appearing for the same, and this also helped me in finding areas of progress and working on them to improve my score.

How I made the most of my college years

College is the best part of a student’s life as it transforms a just-out-of-school student into an employable professional. My college has given me a lot of new friends and experiences, some of which I will never forget.

Most of my time in college was spent definitely in attending class. My classes usually began at 9:00 am and ended at 4:00pm. Due to my interest in technology, I was interested in most of the technical sessions and programming related classes. I also used to participate in workshops on interesting topics like Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Besides this, I took part in different college level technical fests and other curricular activities.

If given a chance I would like to change the way students are evaluated. In my opinion, the performance of a student on a particular day cannot decide his future.

College life enables a person to face professional life with ease and makes him a better person due to different traits he learns in college, such as public speaking, presenting ideas publically and implementing them as well. Also, a student learns the importance of networking with fellow students and alumni which helps in technical and personal growth due to more visibility about the challenges which are awaiting us in the outside world.

My college has given me lots of new friends and experiences, some of which I will never forget. The whole experience made me a very patient and positive person. Hence, college life builds up a major part of our life’s experiences.

About the Author:

My name is Vishal Sharma. I am an engineer working as a Software Developer for last 6 years. I have been fortunate enough to work with leading MNCs like Infosys, Accenture and Sapient in multiple geographic locations in last few years of my career.

My hobbies include travelling and I am a dedicated software programmer by heart. I enjoy it more than anything else and for the same reason I love my job. Apart from this, in my free time I try to contribute to social causes wherever possible. I am an active member of an NGO by the name of ‘SNEHAM’.